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COMBAT: World War I by Don- Ed. Congdon

COMBAT: World War I

By

Publisher: Delacorte

One of the finest assemblages of World War I combat memorabilia, this is an equal combination of the folklore of gunfire and nostalgia as rendered by the men who pulled the triggers. Triggers is perhaps incorrect, for the bayonet was considered the truly operable part of a rifle, and was matched in importance only by the entrenching tool (shovel). These are men who thought the war would last 100 years: five of fighting and ninety-five of winding up to barbed wire. Behind the lines on both sides parade and drill went on as ever, officers rode useless horses and nobody believed in the machine gun or the tank until the French losses became fantastic. Contributors to this collection include Churchill on the battle of the Marne, Alan Moorehead on the Anzac beachhead, Robert Graves (from Goodbye to All That), Alan Clark, Alistair Horne; Hanson Baldwin, Siegfried Sassoon, T.E. Lawrence, John W. Thomason, and battle pilots and sailors. William Manchester's prologue and epilogue neatly define the outlines of the age which vanished at the signing of the Armistice, an age of princes, potentates, plumed marshals and ""glittering little regular armies.